What creates such anger to shoot and kill? As a society, we've lost connectivity with our youth. We're too busy to listen, to provide a sounding board to which kids can turn when confronted with problems or disappointments. Such thoughts inundate the minds of many. An all too familiar cold fear took over last Friday as I listened to an alert from the Cherry Creek administration, a reassu...

There are people who do insane things. There is no "why." It just happens. It happens because evil is real and the idea that we can "understand" everything is silly hubris.

It is a tragedy that the young lady was injured so devastatingly, but it's also a tragedy when a tire blows out and someone is killed when the skidding car plows into a tree. Asking why the young predator decided to shoot the young lady is like asking why the tire decided to blow out. Such questions perhaps let you feel involved or compassionate and they certainly offer you the opportunity to suggest "fixes" and further refinements on how - in your opinion - other people should live their lives. But the question itself is stupid.

Liberals tell us "it takes a village". And when that village fails then it's Why.

Liberal have created a society of ME, ME, ME, ME first. Who does Obama care about first himself or the country? ME, ME, ME.

Liberal have created a society that can't deal with failure. A marriage fails and there are feelings of abandoned, insecurity, being unloved and self-esteem falters and worthlessness emerges over time. Marriage have failed before and no one shot up a school.

The left has eliminated competition at all levels. From sports competition to competition in the classroom, all in the name of, " It's not fair" . Competition teaches failure. Failure teaches Disappointment. Disappointment teaches to over come. To over come teaches trying harder.

We learn more from our mistakes then our success, but when the left eliminates mistakes, aka failure, it makes it more difficult to learn. However this could be done by design with the left so WE don't learn. That way the left can tell us what we need to learn.

Liberals have created a society of limited consequences. When thing get hard it's time to cut and run.

Liberals tell us, we can't go back. Back to a Father Knows Best time. As statistics show 146 mass shootings since 2006 (24 of them just this past year), we no longer express incredulity when we learn of yet another. So which is it? Going back or going forward with a shrug of the shoulders at yet another school shooting?

The WHY's are right in front of us, are we going to continue to ignore them.

This rambling, disjointed piece doesn't really help us make sense of what happened. The author throws out a series of possibilities which really proves nothing more than that she didn't know the kid or why he thought the way he did. I'll bet someone out there, who was paying attention and actually listening to this angry kid, is not particularly surprised.

I also take issue with the lame argument that "everyone getting a trophy" somehow contributes to a massive sense of disappointment in children. Not everything in our lives should be a competition. Perhaps the real problem is that our culture doesn't agree - we are always busy picking winners and losers in nearly everything: economic status, fashion sense, tech savvy, social prowess, sports ability, popularity . . . and on and on and on. Perhaps we actually need more inclusiveness in order to connect with each other and with our children. Perhaps ADULTS are the ones who need to change instead of putting kids into a meat-grinder to prepare them for the bar fight that we call the "real world." It's only real because we made it that way; we do have the power to make it something else.

Blaming electronic communication is equally misguided. We use these devices to keep in touch with other human beings. Did anyone else notice the irony of this claim being made in an online paper?

But at least we know one thing - the talking heads will always ask "why" instead of thinking about "how."

I didn't ask WHY. I said WOW. An armed "resource officer" was on hand to limit the damage. I'd say it worked.

Gun violence continues to decline, and is concentrated in certain communities in large cities.

Students are at far greater risk from drugs, alcohol, automobile accidents and suicide than from a "mass shooting (which Arapahoe wasn't).

Arapahoe HS and the District will review what happened, and hopefully improve their ability to recognize when a situation like this might be developing. There is no way to stop it. There is enough CRAZY going around that we have to live with it.

Luckily, CRAZY is a self-limiting condition. It is better dealt with than denied.

throatwarbler wrote:I didn't ask WHY. I said WOW. An armed "resource officer" was on hand to limit the damage. I'd say it worked.

Gun violence continues to decline, and is concentrated in certain communities in large cities.

Students are at far greater risk from drugs, alcohol, automobile accidents and suicide than from a "mass shooting (which Arapahoe wasn't).

Arapahoe HS and the District will review what happened, and hopefully improve their ability to recognize when a situation like this might be developing. There is no way to stop it. There is enough CRAZY going around that we have to live with it.

Luckily, CRAZY is a self-limiting condition. It is better dealt with than denied.

50 years ago, I was in high school. I was the youngest and smallest in my class, poor, pimple-faced, un-athletic, picked on and mostly shunned by the "in" crowd. I grew up in a town where guns were readily available in nearly every household, including my own. Never once did it ever cross my mind to grab a gun and go shoot somebody. This was, of course, before mass media, graphically violent movies, video games and TV shows, before 24/7 news coverage, before widespread divorce, before the public glorification of self, before the "Hugh Hefnerization" of America, before constant electronic contact, back when men were men and women were women, home and family were the ideal, christian living was lauded, etc. Somewhere in there are clues to the "why" of Carl Pierson and others like him. As the great philosopher, Pogo, once said, "We have met the enemy, and it are us."

Although there is much that's wrong with our world, and we can all aspire to be better parents, friends and teachers, let's get realistic about things. Many thousands of teenagers are currently living with divorced parents, don't have dinner with their families, are ignored, are bullied, are depressed and have suffered setbacks that cause them to suffer greatly. Many thousands of teenagers are mentally ill or lack impulse control and are improperly supervised by their parents and by their schools. Yet last year only 24 of them managed to take up a gun and shoot fellow students and/or teachers and themselves. Why those 24? The specifics relating to them are important because they are in such a small minority of the many extremely troubled young people who managed to soldier on despite their problems, or are prevented from hurting others. Silly editorials like this do nothing to help figure out what makes the difference between someone who snaps and kills and the 100s of thousands who do not.

Liberals tell us "it takes a village". And when that village fails then it's Why.

Liberal have created a society of ME, ME, ME, ME first. Who does Obama care about first himself or the country? ME, ME, ME.

Liberal have created a society that can't deal with failure. A marriage fails and there are feelings of abandoned, insecurity, being unloved and self-esteem falters and worthlessness emerges over time. Marriage have failed before and no one shot up a school.

The left has eliminated competition at all levels. From sports competition to competition in the classroom, all in the name of, " It's not fair" . Competition teaches failure. Failure teaches Disappointment. Disappointment teaches to over come. To over come teaches trying harder.

We learn more from our mistakes then our success, but when the left eliminates mistakes, aka failure, it makes it more difficult to learn. However this could be done by design with the left so WE don't learn. That way the left can tell us what we need to learn.

Liberals have created a society of limited consequences. When thing get hard it's time to cut and run.

Liberals tell us, we can't go back. Back to a Father Knows Best time. As statistics show 146 mass shootings since 2006 (24 of them just this past year), we no longer express incredulity when we learn of yet another. So which is it? Going back or going forward with a shrug of the shoulders at yet another school shooting?

The WHY's are right in front of us, are we going to continue to ignore them.

Hate much?

She was already learning that if you ignore the rules people will, half the time, quietly rewrite them so that they don't apply to you.-Equal Rites

This piece is akin to an article on this year's flooding without mentioning the rains. It ignores the fact that the primary cause of school shootings (in 3 out of 4 cases, according to the Secret Service) is bullying. To write an article about a school shooting, especially where there is evidence that the shooter was bullied, shows more than irresponsibility. It shows an agenda, a willful blindness, and perhaps even a willingness to mislead.

This question has been asked throughout history. The social conditions which contribute to certain behaviors are not new. This behavior of someone running amok and killing people with a large knife was described in the1800s when Alfred Russell Wallace travelled in the Malay Archipelago, for example. He noted that this problem seemed to be mainly in one region and speculated on causes for the occurrence at that place.

While the factors that result in certain behaviors are complicated multiple interactions which make these behaviors relatively rare we want to minimize such things as mass killings and suicides. While there are things that we cannot control such as the brain rewiring that goes on in kids as they mature, we can influence attitudes values, and problems solving strategies.

Certainly family and peer group interactions are important factors. The institution over which we have some control is the school with helps form attitudes not only in school but in the later work place. The fact that so many of these shootings occur at school and workplace suggests the school is a place we should closely examine as one source of problems and a place to introduce solutions.

After each shooting the ending of the poem "Creed" by Steve Turner comes to mind:

???We believe that man is essentially good.It's only his behaviour that lets him down.This is the fault of society.Society is the fault of conditions.Conditions are the fault of society.

We believe that each man must find the truththat is right for him.Reality will adapt accordingly.The universe will readjust. History will alter.We believe that there is no absolute truthexcepting the truth that there is no absolute truth.

We believe in the rejection of creeds. And the flowering of individual thought.If chance be the Father of all flesh,disaster is his rainbow in the skyand when you hear State of Emergency!Sniper Kills Ten! Troops on Rampage!Whites go Looting! Bomb Blasts School!It is but the sound of man worshipping his maker.

We have a mental health crisis in this country. In recent years, I've encountered a few individuals with obvious untreated mental health issues. Some of them with hints of a violent streak. That's something I never witnessed in earlier years.

Ask "How" instead. These cases need closer examination. With understanding maybe we can prevent these acts. Stop making it a witch trial and apply some science instead.

People who commit these atrocities should be exempt from health privacy laws so that doctors and scientists can study for physiological components. In this latest case, I will assume his medical records are sealed or off limits. This info should be public record so we can understand more about the history.

Get-Real wrote:Children raised in the love of God by a mother and father in a home where the Ten Commandments are practiced and taught do not take up arms to kill a teacher when they are disappointed at school.

Ummm...actually yes he did. And while whatever moral teaching he had received didn't stop the initial carnage (insert wild speculation) it may have instilled enough empathy in the young man that when he blew the young girl's face off with a 12 gauge shotgun he suddenly realized the video game was over and everything had gotten very real. And then he killed himself rather than continue with what was obviously a long thought out plan.

I'm very much in favor of armed security in our schools, but I don't think this kid was afraid of the good guy with the gun, he just saw what he'd done and couldn't live with it. Just a guess.